Cecilie Gaziano

Forecast 2000: Widening Knowledge Gaps

This report updates a 1983 analysis of fifty-eight knowledge gap studies, adding thirty-nine studies and pointing out innovative ways to improve research in the area. The persistence of knowledge inequalities across topics and research settings has serious consequences. Gaps in public affairs and health knowledge have an especially severe impact on those groups most negatively affected by socioeconomic changes, who also tend to be information poor. Rapid growth of socioeconomic divisions between “haves” and “have-nots” in the last two decades suggests that knowledge gaps deserve increased research attention because they are related and potentially affected phenomena.

Notes on "Revisiting the Knowledge Gap Hypothesis: A Meta-Analysis of Thirty-Five Years of Research"

This paper elaborates on a recent meta-analysis of knowledge gap studies in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, highlighting the importance of community structure and issue conflict in modifying knowledge differentials, calling for refined conceptualizations of knowledge, and pointing up areas for additional research. It argues that the one independent measure chosen from a study for a knowledge gap meta-analysis should he the relationship between education and knowledge when media publicity is of the greatest magnitude, not an average of the lowest and highest magnitudes. This is because the hypothesis emphasizes the role of increased publicity on the education-knowledge relationship.

Chain Newspaper Homogeneity and Presidential Endorsements, 1972–1988

Political candidate endorsements are a vestige of newspapers’ origins as organs of the country’s early political parties.) Although newspapers long ago cut their formal ties to political parties, they retained their role as the public’s advisors on political action.2 Many scholars argue that newspaper endorsements of political candidates have impacts on election outcomes.’ Newspaper ownership also appears to be an important factor in both endorsements and

Dimensions of Media Credibility: Highlights of the 1985 ASNE Survey

The 1985 ASNE media credibility survey showed the public is most critical of media in their coverage of ordinary people, accuracy and bias. Other credibility problems derive from peoples confusion about separation of fact and opinion, differences between the public and the media in news judgment, coverage of news and news presentation. Attitudes toward credibility were related to views on press freedoms and attitudes toward media use. Recommendations for newspapers are provided.

Relationship Between Public Opinion and Supreme Court Decisions: Was Mr. Dooley Right?

The role and function of public sentiment and sanction in democratic theory assumes that there is a relationship between the law as expressed in Supreme Court decisions and public opinion. Aspects for support for this hypothesis are: (1) when fewer than four in ten members of the public approved of a broad guarantee of free speech the court restricted the First Amendment; (2) when fewer than four in ten members of the public supported the First Amendment. the courts decisions were much more likely to be close ones in either direction but especially when rulings were adverse to free speech; and (3) when a low level of public favor for free speech rights of extremists was rising, the Court was more likely to render decisions upholding the First Amendment even though less than 50% of the public supported free speech for political extremists.

Segments of the Public Most Critical of Newspapers' Credibility: A Psychographic Analysis

Psychographic concepts were developed of attitudes toward media responsibility, news involvement and social alienation to learn more about two groups within the public who are the most critical of newspapers. One group, termed “sophisticated skeptics,” may be of special interest to newspapers because of its high interest in news and newspapers but potentially low loyalty to specific newspapers. This group is the most vocal and active of the two, and members are likely to hold a world view very different from that of many newspaper journalists. This difference may contribute to lack of trust in newspapers.